I’ve covered Melania Trump for more than a decade. Here’s what I learned from her new documentary
“Melania” is a big, beautiful coffee table book of a film, filled with glossy images, high fashion and a captivating soundtrack. But like its notoriously private subject, the movie released Friday is carefully curated and short on substance, devoid of clues that provide a better understanding of who the first lady is behind closed doors. I have covered Melania Trump for the better part of the last decade. I’ve traveled to her native Slovenia and met childhood classmates, flown on her plane and climbed the Great Wall of China with her. I went to Texas with her on the day she wore that jacket. I have asked her questions and watched nearly every interview she’s ever given.
But I still have no idea what she’s really like or what it’s like to be a member of the Trump family. This movie — and the press tour around it — underscores that we’ll never actually know. It certainly left my questions unanswered. Still, for a White House observer, it had entertaining moments. Trump is never without a full face of makeup and rarely without a high heel in the one-hour, 44-minute-long film, always impeccably put together, no hair out of place. She is even-keeled and stoic, even as she described moments as “emotional.” This is what happens when you’re the executive producer of your own narrative. The film was made with Trump’s full participation and editorial control.
She selected its director and was deeply involved in its production, from the score to the trailer to the marketing plans to the final product. Amazon MGM Studios signed a $40 million deal with her — plus a whopping $35 million budget for marketing — according to a source familiar with the matter, marking a notable break in precedent for a first lady to profit off access to a moment in history. Notably, the film is debuting as President Donald Trump’s administration faces backlash, from even some members of the Republican Party, over its handling of the killing of two US citizens at the hands of federal officers in Minneapolis.
But politics — at least in the conventional sense — is not what this film is about. Inside looks The film promised a behind-the-scenes look at the 20 days leading up to Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025. It delivers colorful details about what happens during a presidential transition, the design decisions that need to be made and the gilded world the Trumps inhabit in New York and Florida. Trump fills in the gaps with voiceover narration that reflects the way she speaks publicly — a lot of vague words. “With this film, I want to show the American people my journey: the transition from a private citizen to the first lady.
Every day, I live with purpose and devotion, orchestrating the complexities of my life while nurturing my family’s needs,” she says smoothly. The movie opens with waves crashing on the shore and an aerial shot of the Mar-a-Lago pool that then swoops over to men on the putting green, set to the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter.” (Trump will later tell us that the Palm Beach resort is her “refuge.”) And then, our first glimpse of Trump is a dramatic close-up of snakeskin Christian Louboutin stilettos. Heels are the motif throughout as the former model walks the catwalk of her own life. She then gets into a waiting SUV and makes her way to New York.
There are behind-the-scenes gifts for frequent Trump and White House watchers. Viewers see the first lady on her planes, moving from the bowels of Trump Tower up a service elevator to massive gold doors leading inside her 66th-floor private living quarters and even in her Mar-a-Lago closet (where she has a drawer just for sunglasses). In Washington, DC, we see inside Blair House, observe US Secret Service instructions in the Capitol with the Bidens, and even peek inside the White House executive residence. But the dominant theme is fashion.
Trump spends multiple scenes in fittings with the designer Adam Lippes, who created her navy inaugural ceremony coat, and her personal stylist, Hervé Pierre, who designed that evening’s inaugural ball gown in her signature white and black. “You don’t give the recipe. … Everything is underneath,” he says of the dress’ hidden seams — a fitting description for how Trump keeps herself guarded. She meticulously requests tweaks to the coat’s fit and the placement of the lapel. She cares about the sharpness of her hat but doesn’t explain why she chose a style that shielded her eyes from public view for much of the day. Interior style gets its due too.
In one early scene, Trump meets with designer Tham Kannalikham as they flip through books of furniture inventory and artwork incoming first families can select to decorate the home. It’s “the Olympic installation for designers,” Kannalikham says as she explains the process of moving one first family out and another in, all within hours. Her husband’s wife Trump, whose private nature has made her somewhat of a Rorschach test for political observers, makes very clear she and her husband are completely aligned. “Being hand in hand with my husband at this moment is very emotional. Nobody has endured what he has over the past few years.
People try to murder him, incarcerate him, slander him, and here he is. I’m so very proud,” she narrates. Still, there are moments when she asserts herself, including a scene where Donald Trump is preparing his inaugural address and she encourages him to tweak a line calling himself a “peacemaker” to include the word “unifier.” “Don’t put that on tape please,” the then-president-elect says, to which his wife exclaims, “Please do.” Barron Trump, whom the first lady calls an “incredible mind,” is featured most prominently of any Trump family members, with her stepchildren relegated to a few background scenes. But none of them speaks on camera.
Reflecting on grief, the role of the first lady and safety Perhaps the most humanizing aspect of the film is Trump’s reflection on losing her mother. The one-year anniversary of Amalija Knavs’ death fell on the same day as Jimmy Carter’s funeral on January 9 — a rare meeting of the former presidents’ club that Donald and Melania Trump actually attended. But it’s jarring how much her own reckoning with grief is overlaid on the funeral of a late Democratic president her husband has widely criticized. “I cherish all the incredible memories I have of my mother,” Trump says as a camera zooms in on Carter’s American flag-draped casket at Washington National Cathedral.
The film touts Trump’s accomplishments, with several text slates at the end that list them. It shows her working on some of those initiatives — combatting cyberbullying, for example, which she discusses in a video chat with French first lady Brigitte Macron, and helping children in foster care with education, which she and Queen Rania of Jordan discuss at Mar-a-Lago. While Trump has continued to promote those efforts, she doesn’t offer any insight into why they’re a passion. Her office has not provided an explanation, either. Her diplomatic efforts extend to meeting with Aviva Siegel, an Israeli woman who was held hostage in Gaza.
“Don’t keep that inside,” Trump says, walking over to comfort a crying Siegel with a hug in a moment she calls “very emotional.” At one point, Trump says she wants to “evolve the role of first lady beyond formal social duties” — a narration that comes as she shows herself getting ready for a formal dinner at the National Building Museum. Security concerns about the inauguration also appear to weigh on her in the aftermath of two failed assassination attempts on her husband during the 2024 campaign. When the Trumps discuss plans for the inaugural parade with the US Secret Service, she questions whether it’s safe to get out of the motorcade.
“How could that be safe, especially with the last year, what’s going on and stuff? I have concerns, honestly, and I know Barron will not go out of the car. I respect that. That’s his decision. We need to talk about it,” she says in one of her more impassioned conversations of the film. There are also a couple of moments that hint at Trump’s immigrant story. She alludes to “my home country” — she was born in communist Yugoslavia, now Slovenia — without ever mentioning it by name as she selects coupe glasses to engrave with a presidential seal. And she references becoming an American as she narrates the moments of Inauguration Day.
“Walking into the Capitol’s Rotunda, I felt the weight of history intertwined with my own journey as an immigrant, a reminder of why I respect this nation so deeply. Everyone should do what they can to protect our individual rights. Never take them for granted,” she said. But there is nothing that touches on her husband’s hardline immigration rhetoric during the campaign. Making the film The film’s massive budget — without many peers in the documentary genre — prompted questions about whether Amazon was doing the project for political gain. Its billionaire chairman, Jeff Bezos, had dinner with the Trumps at Mar-a-Lago in December 2024 and attended the inauguration.
“No, I don’t know, I mean I don’t know really, I’m not involved, that was done with my wife,” Donald Trump told a reporter Thursday night when asked about the large deal with Amazon feeding perceptions of corruption. Amazon has made a bet that the public curiosity about the first lady will drive viewers, even as cinemas have struggled with slumping ticket sales. Preliminary projections suggested the film was tracking for a $2 million to $5 million opening weekend, according to Boxoffice Pro. A streaming date for the film has yet to be announced. “We licensed the film for one reason and one reason only—because we think customers are going to love it,” said an Amazon MGM Studios spokesperson.
Director Brett Ratner on Thursday responded to reports that some members of the film’s crew asked not to be included in the credits amid concerns about reputational harm. “We picked up day players. So I understand if a liberal is working on the movie and they don’t want to be credited, but they want to feed their family, I don’t blame anybody for that,” he told reporters ahead of the Kennedy Center premiere on Thursday.
The film also poses a key test for Ratner — who was accused of sexual misconduct by numerous women in 2017 — after nearly a decade of exile from Hollywood. (He’s denied the allegations.) Ratner inserts himself into the film several times, singing “Billie Jean” with Trump as she rides from Trump Tower to the airport — a rare moment where she lets loose, a little. “Are we doing carpool karaoke with Melania?” Ratner asks. The first lady said she chose the director for his talent, while her senior adviser Marc Beckman (also a producer of the film) said Ratner was “transforming the concept of what a documentary is.” Trump, for her part, said it wasn’t a documentary.
“Some have called this a documentary. It is not,” she told a crowd of Cabinet members, conservative influencers and minor celebrities at the premiere. “It is a creative experience that offers perspectives, insights and moments,” she said. Asked by CNN how she would define success for the film, she didn’t point to box office numbers or streaming statistics — because the deal has already been a win, in her view. “I’m very proud of the film. So people may like it, may not like it, and that’s their choice,” she said.